Over at his Future Angels blog, Stephen Smith recently gave some inside skinny on working for the City of Anaheim back when Gene Autry was crying foul over the Rams coming into (and rendering butt-ugly) the Big A. Excerpt from a long post:

Shortly after the deal was announced, the Angels filed suit. Autry claimed he was blindsided by the deal, and was aghast that his fans might have to park in a concrete structure instead of a flat open surface.

Working inside the City Manager's Office, I saw documents which proved Autry was a liar.

Autry's Angels executives were regularly briefed on Rams negotiations. They had shown no interest whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to like the idea because the stadium capacity would increase from about 42,000 to 65,000, meaning more tickets to sell. And if truth be told, the Angels rarely drew enough spectactors to use those parking spaces that would be in the structure.

Some speculated that the executives had failed to keep Autry informed, which seems rather implausible.

What convinced me Autry was lying was that, while publicly saying he didn't want his customers to park in a supposedly dangerous structure, privately his lawyers were offering to drop the lawsuit if Anaheim would give Autry ten acres of the parking lot to build a museum. So it was clear he didn't give a damn about fan safety and convenience. He wanted a piece of the pie after the fact.

Whole thing here.